President-elect Barack Obama

Who's Obama's Base?

by Lee Stranahan

When I see people like my old pal Markos on MSNBC and elsewhere talking about Obama needing to remember who brung him to the dance or David Sirota's column about The Team Of Rivals (h/t Travis), I see the new old progressive movement jockeying for position.

My take, however, is that Obama is beholden not to traditional progressives but to the massive amount of new voters that Obama himself brought to the party. That's scary to a lot of people in the Democratic establishment. But those fresh faced Obamacrats aren't holding their breath at each appointment, they are ready to let the guy they supported go to work.

I think it's also hard for people to wrap their head about the 'rivals' idea because they seem to want rivals they agree with. Those aren't rivals, though, really.